


art for the dead

by orphan_account



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M, Manga Spoilers, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The time will come when he will have to go and collect the death angel’s heart as well, create a painting out of bloody innards and a sculpture out of his soul. It’s an art for the dead like himself, picking the world apart with his patient fingers, one heart and soul at a time, mismatching duos paired by unfortunate fate and tied together with ugly red string. </p><p>How truly boring it is to pass his time destroying others simply because he cannot destroy himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	art for the dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dailinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dailinn/gifts).



> i'm glad dailinn and i are on the same page  
> uta and gore all the way

 Laughter’s like a dead art  
destroying the world  
with antimatter for the heart  
and a black hole for the soul.

 

It’s rather nice, Uta muses, the warmth in his hands that slowly stills and stiffens, gives in to the cold of death and rot. He’s always marveled at the texture of hearts, whether they be a human’s or a ghoul’s. The feel of all those arteries, the muscle and fiber—it’s addicting in a cruel way. On a more regular basis, however, he’ll pry his victims’ eyes out of their skulls. If they’re alive, the sockets twitch erratically, and though they may try to speak, beg for mercy, Uta’s fingers are lodged so deep into their throats that speech has become impossible, and breathing without drowning in red is a miraculous occurrence.

 

The kakugan of a ghoul, Uta has discovered, loses its intensity when completely removed. Because of this finding, he prefers to carve the bone and skin away from around the eyes instead, holding the dark planets insides his palms as a ghoul quivers in both pain and fear beneath his touch. It’s a shame no one else seems to find this activity entertaining, though, so he’s always off on his own, coaxing the agony out of others.

 

“You’re sick,” one ghoul gurgles through the healing slit in her throat. It’s a sunny day in Ward Four, but the light doesn’t reach this deep into the alleys. “Why the hell did they make someone like you the leader?”

 

“That,” he says mildly, tugging on the lengths of her coarse hair, “is a _very_ good question. No one’s really given me answers though.”

 

At the sight of the revered Peacemaker nibbling at her eye, the ghoul hisses. Her kagune makes a slow reappearance, and Uta merely watches, sitting back to allow it to slide out fully. It’s a hideous, feeble thing, emerging from the base of her spine like a tail. She wouldn’t be considered a weak ghoul to others, but Uta just finds it interesting to watch them struggle so much. This one has lasted an especially long time compared to the others, and he figures he might as well try to play with her a little more. He won’t be reprimanded; he lays down the rules in the Fourth ward. Sometimes he feels like child who’s taken over the throne, laughing at those who bend at their knee to obey a young tyrant.

 

In the end, however, it’s the same disappointing fight. He steps away from the woman’s body with a deceptively calm face, a serenity that is offset by the blood running down his chin and marking his clothes in loud, ugly staccato. The outline of her skull is a brilliant contrast to the dark crimson of her innards coating the cement below, a white lie that shatters quietly like a dream. He bends down and plucks her remaining eye from her collapsed head, shaking his head.

 

“You don’t deserve those,” he frowns, and ambles back through the labyrinth of dark passages in the ward. When he looks up, the sight of the clear azure sky and its ethereal white clouds nearly blinds him.

 

 

x             x

 

 

A heart, Uta finds, is something that he’s rather capable of pretending to have. It’s become one of the simplest, most second-nature habit of his. It is faking a sympathetic smile, holding the hand of a dying child, leading a hornet’s horde he has no intention of saving. Many of his enemies mistake him as a soft-hearted leader and are outrageously surprised when they discover their lives have been in the palm of his hand this entire time.

 

What he discovers to be rather difficult, though, is trying to manifest a soul where there is nothing. It’s something that isn’t suited for the likes of him, he supposes. He’s never been one for a gentle, fulfilling lifestyle. Uta has always been one to do as he pleases, so he doesn’t take to demands well. Anyone who interrupts his empty games will find that the hollow space in place of his spirit is rather fitting of him.

 

“Merge with the Sixteenth Ward?” he repeats after the rude delegates across the room. “Why?”

 

Following his half-assed query is a long explanation of the social structure of the ghoul community throughout the wards, and how it would be a revolution if the Fourth and Sixteen did happen to join. They would be able to dominate nearby wards quietly, with assistance from the famous Peacemaker, of course. Wards one through four would become accessible to all ghouls again, and above it all, they would have authority, power and control. Ward Sixteen only needs a spark to ignite their plan, and they want Uta to light the way.

 

 _Light the way, as if_. He snorts around his evening snack and rolls his eyes. “Don’t wanna.”

 

They seem confused at his reaction. Was there anything lacking in their plan? Does he wish for more compensation? On and on, more promises of fame and power that he doesn’t want or need. He waves them off with a dismissive hand, but the bargainers refuse to leave, stare at him with their calculating, angry eyes.

 

“If we must use force,” they warn him slowly. “We will do exactly that.”

 

“Rude,” he comments, finishing the last bite sloppily, and lunges forward to tear the lead delegate’s eyes right out of his head. Grinning at their shocked shrieks, he jumps back with the crushed eyes in his hands and licks slowly, seductively at the blood that drips off. In both fear and rage, they attack him, kagune pulled out like disgusting tentacles, manifestations of their own corruption. He tears them off easily—ukaku wings have always been easy to break, and koukaku are so _slow_ —as he has always done, and stands amidst the gore and broken bones that crumble under his feet.

 

His subordinates find Uta snacking on dulled kakugan, still covered in foul-smelling blood. His blonde hair feels crusty and really could use a lot of washing, but he’s more interested in the reactions of his underlings. Their respect for him has been clear from day one, but no matter how long he leads them, they will never lose the touch of fear in their frozen stares. The fear in their eyes looks a lot like comets, flashing through the skies of their irises before disappearing behind a veneer of crudely crafted masks.

 

When they don’t make any movement to clear the dead bodies, he snaps a wrist and offers a hand to a young woman with glittering hair the color of golden wheat dipped in sunset. “Care to try some?”

 

His offer is declined, of course. Itori has never been one to trust him much anyways, so he doesn’t really care whether she accepts anything from him or not. She does, however, give him a small peck on the cheek, teasing as always.

 

“Clear this place up,” he commands the others, wrinkling his nose at the smell that’s soaked into his skin. “Burn the bodies. I don’t care where.”

 

They follow his orders without question, cute little puppets that could never fathom the worlds of pain revolving endlessly in the plane of Uta’s mind.

 

 

x             x

 

 

Encountering Yomo Renji is a pleasant surprise. Uta has always looked for a rival to keep close, and the silent, brooding man is a perfect match for what he wants. The smell of fermenting revenge and trauma is hard to miss, as sweet and distinct it is. When he and Yomo first fight, they are moving so fast that Uta nearly forgets what it’s like to be weighed down by gravity. Everything is so exciting when he’s in motion like this, nearly flying, scrambling for his worthless life with the wind in his hair and shadows in his eyes.

 

Even as an ukaku wielder, Renji is sturdy, and above that, driven. It’s a good look, one that Uta always vies to have under his thumb. One could say they had been friends. Looking from Uta’s perspective though, Renji is something akin to a fascinating toy that can keep him entertained just for a little while; recently he’s been doing a lot of things to keep his boredom at bay, and pretending to hold value to his acquaintances has become a bit of a nasty habit. It’s a shame he can’t keep Renji as an enemy, but he would get in the way of a lot of future plans. Uta won’t be having any of that—not if it means ruining his fun.

 

So when Renji explodes in anger at the sight of Arima Kishou—even the sound of that name makes Uta want to stick fingers down his own throat—Uta stares at the beautiful burst of red, the ireful black that creeps over the white of sclera. It’s a slow corruption, from human to monster, though in a way humans are just as scary with their hypocritical scheming ways, traits where their weaknesses overturn everything in the wake of their search for power.

 

Perhaps it’s with dark amusement that he watches Renji stumble on his feet, marked unsteady by that damned angel’s hand. He sits back and pretends that he’s concerned with the inhuman power that exudes off of Arima in invisible, barren feathers. He can almost feel the turmoil of thoughts beneath the calm surface of his physical disposition, wants to reach out and rip the chaos right out of the angel’s head.

 

Wouldn’t that be nice, to steal an angel’s thoughts for his own, to steal every last bit of laughter and life left in those pitiful wings.  It might be even nicer to pluck those sad eyes from their fleshy altar and rip those feathers out one by one, let them crumble and shrivel into blackness and depravity.

 

That same night, Itori comes over with a bottle of what looks like wine (it isn’t) and pours him a generous cup of vibrant crimson. To celebrate the beginning, she claims with her heavy-lidded eyes and coy smile, a little bit of fun to their insignificant, unremarkable lives. They’ve seen what Jason can do, now, and as commemoration, Itori has brought her finest blood wine. He doesn’t necessarily understand why there needs to be such a fuss over this, but Itori’s always enjoyed her festivities, so he doesn’t complain much. He amuses himself by watching eyes bob inside the wine, staring lazily at nothing in particular through the sea of red.

 

The wine isn’t bad, but Uta still prefers gnawing on eyeballs.

 

“Ward Eleven is next,” she reminds him when she leaves just past midnight. He watches her fade into the distance, counts the steps that echo past the flickering streetlamps and empty roads that glitter with starry stones.

 

He doesn’t need reminding. Pulling out his best worn mask, Uta slips it over the laughter that falls past his lips. He, too, quietly slips into the night.

 

 

x             x

 

 

The day his prized creation comes to get his measurements for a mask, Uta is running low on his snacks. He isn’t completely out, of course, but since he’s keeping his snacking to a moderate amount, he finds that hunger comes clawing at his insides as it does when he excited and thirsty for opposition.

 

Touka has become something little more than irrelevant. How foolish she is to go chasing after that human girl, dulling her own ghoul nature with attempts to eat and crave after food other than human meat. Her strength has become a thing of the past, and it can only be drawn up again if she chooses to throw away what she’s embraced for years. She and Ayato are from the same womb, and yet they are so different that Uta doesn’t know if he should be amused or confused. Her entrance isn’t anything new. Touka follows Uta’s creation deeper into the studio—Uta can tell merely by the sound of footsteps and breathing.

 

When the white cover is pulled away from his head, he looks up innocently, says, “Boo.”

 

She becomes background. The boy who screams and stumbles backwards now stands under the spotlight, and Uta is transfixed.

 

Kaneki is the name of his creation, so sweet and utterly unsuspecting. His trusting nature smells so good, almost sadly so, like a flower in bloom that soon withers and crumbles. He blanches a little when Uta asks if he’d like to eat an eye, more repulsed at how his own hunger reacts than the fact Uta just offered him human meat. Kaneki smells like slow decadence, burning steadily until it reaches the end of sanity’s rope.

 

Uta can’t _wait_.

 

Later, in the dim setting of his studio, he works the leather with his blackened fingertips, imagines how well the material will suit his little puppet. He can already imagine it, the exhilarating look of madness all in that one glowing eye, the bright edge of insanity that cuts deeper than any other quinque. It makes him giddy, almost, and when Nico stops by later, he mistakes Uta as drunk.

 

“Not drunk,” Uta clarifies later, only half-indignantly. “Things are just getting interesting.”

 

“You and your fun.” Nico’s voice is muffled through his mask and he shakes his head, leaving Uta alone with the buzzing, chattering voices in his head.

 

 _FuN, fUN, fUn_ , the voices chorus, hitched pitching screaming and deep agonized groans in remarkable harmony. Uta hums along to their tune as he works away through the night, chewing his snacks, but unable to acquire the taste that he really wants. Already, after meeting his creation, he wants nothing more than to pull the kakugan out of his head slowly, almost reverently. It would be so beautiful, so delicate in his hand, a forbidden apple that glows even in the wake of its death.

 

He can’t sleep for about the next two weeks or so, mind buzzing with thoughts and daydreams about despair and insanity and everything in between. Uta has never been a very good sleeper to begin with—an insomniac in his prime—but this is more of a restless anticipation that keeps him wide awake rather than boredom. He’s not easy to deal with when he’s restless, that much Itori makes very clear when he’s over at her bar slouched in the corner, staring off into some world that only he can see.

 

“You’re going crazy,” she jokes mildly, sipping from a glass. Always with her red lipstick, red dress, red wine. Everything about her is bloody. Maybe that’s why Uta can tolerate her obnoxious antics to this extent. He picks twitchily at his tattoos, his black nails, pulls at his piercings to the point the Nico thinks he’s going to bleed all over the floor. His precious assortment of (specially hand-picked, ha) eyes are rolling on the counter, mostly uneaten.

 

“I’ve always been crazy,” he says with a tilt to his head. Perhaps the craziest out of all of them, even if Pierrot certainly isn’t a group of ghouls with a normal state of mind. Tapping at his skin impatiently, he asks, “You sent Kaneki to the Gourmet’s place, right?”

 

“That’s how the plan was set,” Itori confirms, takes another sip of sweet, thick wine. “Quit being so antsy. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were drunk.”

 

“That’s what I thought at first,” Nico laughs. “He’s not good with excitement, is he?”

 

“I’m so _bored_ ,” Roma wails, face planting into the bar. Her forehead meets the lacquered surface with a loud thud. “Souta’s away at the restaurant so he can’t keep me entertained. Why didn’t he take me with him that trouble loving bastard—”

 

Well, at least Uta isn’t as irritating as Roma is when she has nothing to keep herself occupied with. He’ll transfer her over to work at Anteiku just to keep things quiet around here, even though she probably won’t be able to stop talking about Kaneki when they meet. It’s not just for convenience, however; it’d be nice to have an eye on ghoul-related affairs going on in Ward Twenty. They’ll have real surveillance on Kaneki, too, and can determine all of his quirks and weaknesses from Roma just monitoring how he behaves.

 

Itori smacks Uta on the head to get his senses back together. He’d been smiling to himself again, something he usually does after actually getting drunk. He’ll forgive Itori for her impudence this one time since he’s too enthralled about his creation more than anything else right now.

 

“ _Drunk_ ,” Roma accuses. To shut her up, Uta pushes her face into Nico’s gloriously exposed armpit.

 

 

x             x

 

 

Nighttime is a cool blanket over Uta’s skin as he runs, mouth filled with the cold air. Even though it’s night, the stars aren’t visible in the sky, veiled by a thick layer of pollution and broken dreams. The rustle of fabric is lost in the wind as the ghouls of Anteiku run towards Aogiri’s hideout. A pesky little organization it is, Uta thinks, but it has never bothered him or the Pierrot, so he has no reason to interfere with whatever they’re doing. In the end, the Pierrot will survive, and they will laugh. That is all that really matters.

 

If need be, however, he will laugh alone.

 

When they’ve trudged through a small sea of blood, though Uta would really prefer more of a mess, the ghouls of Anteiku move forward into the abandoned buildings in search of their comrade. _He’s mine_ , Uta wants to say, but keeps his tongue in check. Instead of letting his kagune slide out like everyone else is, he opts for using his fists, a bloody-knuckled fight that he can’t help but enjoy. It’s all to see his creation, after all. If it’s to chase away the dreary fog of boredom in his life, he’ll do whatever it takes.

 

How many tears did Kaneki shed? He wonders. How many stars of glass spilled from that red galaxy amidst its black universe, down onto the unforgiving ground? What a waste they have been! Had Uta been given the choice, he would have been there to catch them all with his tongue, seeking the taste of debauchery and the bitter remnants of sanity. How fortunate Kaneki is, to have been able to overcome the pressure with startling madness, shaped into a crackling supernova with all the voices crawling through his head. Uta might be jealous, but he is more fascinated than anything.

 

“We’ll take care of things from here,” he says as steadily as he can. Uta’s voice, if he doesn’t try to control it, would no doubt end up coming out as shaky and tense with excitement. Here, up close, he can stare at the hollowed planes of Kaneki’s cheeks, the haunting ghost of torture in his eyes, the ragged edges of long ebony fingernails. So, so beautiful, he wants to reach out and scratch his nails over and into and through dull grey, watch it morph into horrendous, picturesque red on black canvas.

 

Instead, he leans back, smiling politely, and moves with the rest of Anteiku in finishing the raid. He hears about Kaneki ‘half-killing’ Ayato and nearly chuckles out loud. When he is told news of Kaneki, with his newly found strength and motive, traipsing around wards and subduing other ghouls with his power, Uta actually does laugh. Itori and Nico aren’t quite so shocked, but Roma nearly shrieks in horror.

 

“You laughed!” she accuses, always with the accusations and snarly comebacks.

 

“You spilled your drink,” he duly notifies her. Roma goes back to fussing over her messes, and Souta sighs heavily from his seat next to her.

 

“You want to see him?” Itori queries, drinking coffee this time.

 

Uta still thinks that adding eyes like marshmallows would be better than pouring in blood as creamer, but he looks at her curiously, shrugging. Smiling briefly, she leans back and stares at the ceiling, seeming pensive. For all of them, smiling is a means of seeming less heartless to others, whether they be humans or ghouls. Laughing is to cover the fact that they’re all pretty much soulless, but they’re still capable of it, if only barely. Knowing how Kaneki is faring, though, is enough to bring back the buzzing exhilaration. He’s still not been able to sleep.

 

Does he want to see Kaneki? The answer would have to be no; Uta only wishes to see the results of his work, to see if the fruit is worth picking at all.

 

The high will only last as long as Kaneki’s madness does; Uta is aware of that. For how long this insomnia will last, though, he doesn’t really know. It may end up lasting as long as he lives in this monochrome prison, chewing through the same routine day by night. Once the high disappears, he will return to yet another bone-breaking search for toys, playthings that will break others in order to ignore the fracture within themselves.

 

He goes back to thinking about his creation and how the plan is going. There are no hitches—Uta’s very good with his calculations, Nico is an expert on torture and some of Aogiri’s clockwork from being around Jason for so long. Itori, with her network, can acquire information from pretty much anywhere faster than the Gourmet moron. All five of them work so well together, he muses, and yet they don’t necessary enjoy each other’s company. They’re a group formed from the desire to quell their boredom, maybe even to watch the world burn.

 

At some point, maybe, Uta will grow tired of the Pierrot as well. Perhaps he’s disturbed by all these thoughts, because he finds himself frowning at the pile of eyes sitting on a plate. Picking an eye with a steel gray iris, he licks off the blood and swallows down the taste of despair and denouement. From the glass container, a hundred eyes stare listlessly into the darkness, stirring only when long fingers reach to pluck them from death eternal.

 

 

x             x

 

 

The wards are in uproar within little time. He’s heard rumors of a kakuja wreaking havoc everywhere he goes. Uta can believe the part about cannibalism, but he knows that Kaneki is merely striving after strength and goals that he cannot truly protect. Kaneki is the sad protagonist in every way, blind to everything but his own selfish desires. He is only the hero in his own world, a villain in many others. To the Pierrot, he is but a mere pawn in their game of chess, manipulated and sacrificed to their every whim. It’s almost tragic how easy it is to predict Kaneki’s actions, so naïve even when he’s no longer the pure being he’d been before.

 

 _The world is wrong_ , Kaneki has said before, Uta remembers it clearly. It had been a rainy afternoon when Kaneki unleashed his kagune for the first time on a dove. He’d nearly gone mad right then with hunger, how foolishly intriguing, but Yomo had ruined it. Damn that raven. Yes, Uta agrees, the world is wrong. But it’s also because of its corruption and evil that makes watching it burn in chaos such a pleasure. It’s truly a shame that the creation cannot see things this way, but Uta has known from the start that Kaneki isn’t the best material for salvation.

 

If anything, he’s best for rotting, fermenting inside his own mind until all his thoughts spill out of his eye sockets and gaping mouth. Kaneki is only good for fun when he is Uta’s dancing marionette, not when he is someone else’s puppet.

 

So when a lance of judgment lodges itself inside of Kaneki’s skull, the thorn of a forlorn flower, Uta makes no move to stop the angel of death. He would chase after that boy and let him heal just so he can steal that eye, lick the tears away and grind through raw flavor with his teeth. But—ah, Uta has never been good at focusing on one thing for too long; it’s surprising that he hasn’t left the Pierrot yet.

 

It’s regrettable that Uta won’t be able to have that precious eye all to himself, but he supposes he can also create more messes and leave everyone else to clean them up for him. The time will come when he will have to go and collect the death angel’s heart as well, create a painting out of bloody innards and a sculpture out of his soul. It’s an art for the dead like himself, picking the world apart with his patient fingers, one heart and soul at a time, mismatching duos paired by unfortunate fate and tied together with ugly red string.

 

How truly boring it is to pass his time destroying others simply because he cannot destroy himself.

 

The same night that Kaneki is taken in by the CCG, courtesy of Arima and his depressing mug, Uta returns to Ward Four and goes on the hunt for more eyes. He’s sorely disappointed by the large majority of them, but he still categorizes them by size, color, and species as obsessively as he would dream about the fall of the red curtain. The feel of black leather, though it had been so exciting months ago, does nothing but stain his fingers darker than his nails. The thought of the wild glint in his creation’s eyes, too, does not make him giddy as it would have. The world, as it always does after a brief splash of color, settles down to being quiet and desperate.

 

Uta, being the dead artist that he is, goes back to laughing quietly behind his masks and gnawing on eyes. With antimatter for the heart and nothing for a soul, he stands by the moon, and the shadows of night grow longer behind him, dark chains that have yet to claim their lost child. When the sun rises, he, too, disappears over the crude, painted horizon.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> checked a bazillion times for typos  
> but if i missed any do give a heads up


End file.
